dual channel worth it???

[UMDivX]

well I currently have a 2.66ghz P4 with a gig of pc3500 ram, on an Asus P4B533-E mobo which doesnt run in Dual channel. I was wanting to either A.) get a AMD64 939pin chip with a Dual channel memory board or B.) save my money and get new mobo for my CPU so I can OverClock the chip better and take advantage of the dual channel memory.

So basicly is dual channel worth it or should i save my money all together and save up for the AMD64 cpu?

Thanks for the help,
-UMDivX

 

[Lazn_Work]

Several things here.

First what will you be using your computer for? If you will be mostly gaming, go for the A64.

If you will be doing heavy multitasking, look into upgrading to a P4 that has Hyperthreading, or a faster A64.

As for if you need dual channel, for Athlon 64's it is a 5-8% difference, for P4's it is a 20-40% increase over single channel. (in memory bound tasks, things that are not memory intesive don't get much if any increase)

In your case because you have a non HT processor and single channel MB, I would look into replacing both, and if you are going to do that right now, the A64 looks to be the smarter choise. (and I have a 3.2 Prescott personally, so I am not a AMD fanatic)

==>Lazn